Romantic Relations: Swedish Attitudes towards Indians during the Twentieth Century

Romantic Relations:
Swedish Attitudes towards Indians during
the Twentieth Century
G U N L Ö G F U R
Many Swedes have had a love affair with their image of
North American Indians throughout the past century. And,
if the latest signs are anything to go by, this affection is not
waning. In the summer of 2003, a campaign to encourage children to
protect themselves against the harmful rays of the sun enlisted the
help of images of Indians on the North American prairies, invoking
their supposedly healthy practice of hiding in their teepee(s) during
the hottest hours of the day as a good example for young Swedish
children to follow.1 A special affinity has long been part and parcel of
at least some very influential stories concerning relationships be­tween
Swedes and Indians. Some of these images originated in the
aftermath of Swedish colonization on the Delaware River in the
seventeenth century and are reiterated every time the colony is com­memorated—
usually every fifty years or so.2
" I n d i a n e r och svenskar voro de bästa vänner i k o l o n i e n D e l a w a r e"
(Swedes and Indians were the best of friends in the Delaware colony)
was the headline of an article in the leftist newspaper A r b e t e t on 21
January 1929. The article continued by stating that while the Swed­ish
state did not have sufficient resources to keep the piece of land
that it had bought in an honest manner, the colonists nonetheless
sought to "behave in a more humane manner towards the natives
than contemporary robber nations."3 The writer emphasized peaceful
exchange and lively commerce between the parties and added that
instructions enjoined the Swedes "not to use slaves, such as other
exploiters, but to seek peaceful cooperation with the Indians." A n
often-cited story, first published i n the travel journal by Peter
Lindeström, that in 1655 the Indians (it is somewhat unclear which
nation) attacked the Dutch in Manhattan to avenge the Hollanders'
aggression towards the Swedish colony, was recirculated and embel-
146
lished: "The Swedes experienced cruelties but they still had the Indi­ans
as their defenders and in general Swedish homes were reached
only over the dead bodies of Delaware Indians." Finally, the article
suggested that the "wild tribes" admired the Swedes for their rejec¬
tion of slavery.4
Swedish stories of a special relationship with Indians seem to
have their origin in the decades following the loss of the New Swe­den
colony, first to the superior forces of the Dutch and then to the
English. The historical evidence in support of such an alliance is slim.
Yet, the stories appear every time the colony is mentioned, and the
idea does not seem to weaken its hold on Swedes. Laudatory histo­ries
published in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries proclaimed
this particular friendship. Not only Swedes spread this image, but so
did American authors.5 Later generations of historians changed their
language, but the sentiment remained. The year 1938 marked the
300t h anniversary of the colony, and while the preparations for this
celebration were under way historian Nils Ahnlund caused a stir in a
presentation to the Swedish Society for Anthropology and Geogra­phy.
He described the Great Power of Sweden as a feeble colonizer
and drew the ire of listeners who preferred to view the seventeenth
century in terms of the country's peak as a powerful nation. But his
comments regarding the relationship between the Swedish colonists
and the Indians remained uncontroversial:
That the Swedes have had a good hand with the natives
is an old, and in terms of our national sensitivity, satisfying
notion, which fortunately can be maintained, particularly if
one looks at the larger picture. . . . New Sweden was always
spared the furious Indian feuds of the kind that the larger
Dutch establishment was exposed to.6
Ahnlund managed to portray colonial Sweden as both active
and dominant ("they had a good hand with the natives") and passive
and gentle ("they were spared the furious feuds"), and together these
pronouncements produced the same conclusion: Sweden was a "good"
colonizer.
This dual approach, mild and strong at the same time, reverber­ated
throughout the commemorations of 1938. For example, when
Crown Prince Gustaf Adolf addressed an American audience during
147
the highly publicized celebrations at the site of the Delaware colony,
he said:
The relations of the Swedish colonists to the Indians
were always friendly. By treating the native tribes in a hu­mane
manner they won their friendship, and I think this
policy explains why the Delaware Valley did not have the
sanguinary Indian wars experienced in other colonies.7
He described how the first pastor to the small Swedish settle­ment,
Johannes Campanius, had labored to translate Luther's cat­echism
into the Lenape language. Published in 1696 as the second
volume ever printed in an Indian language, it displayed a frontispiece
showing the Swedish coat of arms flanked by the emblem of M o d e r
Svea on one side and "by an Indian chieftain in full war dress" on the
other. "This equitable attitude toward the Indians," stated the Crown
Prince, "is very characteristic of the whole book." He went on to say
that, in the author's words, we find "a spirit of tolerance exceptional
in the century when they were written."8
United States Secretary of State Cordell Hull seemed to agree
with Swedish contemporaries both on the assessment of Sweden as a
remarkable power of the period and on its commendable Indian
relations. After applauding the skill, strength, and power of King
Gustaf II Adolf and the Swedish military force, he described its
arrival in the New World:
The flood tide of Swedish power had touched at last the
shores of the New World. . . . The manner of the first contact
is not without significance. Though the first colonists were
soldiers, no violence marked their arrival. Without threats,
without force, following the manner of just men they chose
the land they needed and negotiated for its purchase. No
Indian wars, no savage massacres, mar the annals of New
Sweden on the Delaware.9
The peaceful relationship between Swedes and Indians served
both to demonstrate Sweden's power as a colonizer and her special
148
democratic and humanistic principles. The outcome of the first en­counters
between natives and newcomers hinged exclusively on the
behavior of the Swedes and the character they displayed, and Hull
applauded the early colonists' "possession of those qualities of integ­rity
and strength of character" which contributed to these well or­dered
relations.
After half a century, one world war, and universal decolonization,
the language regarding the Swedish colony remained remarkably
unchanged. Thus Aleksander Loit, not otherwise noted for his lauda­tory
treatment of colonization, wrote briefly in 1984 in one of the
few articles to deal with Sweden's colonial past that "the relation of
the colonists towards the Indians living in the neighborhood appears
to have been more or less free from problems. The Swedish authori­ties
were eager to maintain correct relations with the indigenous
population." A n illustration from Thomas Campanius Holm's 1702
book portraying friendly interaction corroborates this.1 0 In 1989 Terry
G. Jordan and Matti Kaups published a work that perhaps expresses
the mutual affinity of Finns, Swedes, and Indians more clearly than
any other. They argued that the Finnish colonists in particular brought
along experiences of having associated with indigenous peoples through
their previous contacts with Saami people. They also came from a
culture of forest shamanism, and these two features meant that the
meeting between Finnish colonists and Lenape Indians "was a con­frontation
of two like peoples." The consequence was an association
in which "local Delaware Indians called the Finns and Swedes akoores
or n i t t a p p i ('friend,' 'fellow tribesmen,' or 'those who are like us'),
acknowledging the similarity, and they had a different collective
word, senaares, for the English, Germans, and Dutch, whom they
properly regarded as alien." 1 1
This evaluation of Swedish (and Finnish) relations with Indians
occurred both in scholarly works and in popular histories and news­paper
articles. While scholars have become somewhat more cautious
in their presentations, the expressions in popular works have re­mained
unequivocally congratulatory. In 1988, for example, at the
350t h anniversary of the founding of the colony, Nils Erik Baehrendtz
wrote:
149
That Indians and colonists could associate in a friendly
manner with each other does credit to both parties. The
Swedes treated their Indian neighbors justly and with hu­manity.
They never attacked the Indians and never were
guilty of such massacres as the English and Dutch committed
against the Indians and that affected not only the warriors
but also women and children. . . . In comparison the Swedish
colonists' friendly contacts with their Indian neighbors is an
idyllic example.12
The year 2003 marked a celebration of the 365 years that had
passed since the first Swedish ships laid anchor at what is now
Wilmington, Delaware. Crown Princess Victoria was scheduled to
visit the region during the month of April to "honor New Sweden
Pioneers." Her itinerary included Swedish heritage sites in Pennsylva­nia,
Delaware, and New Jersey, and she also met with representatives
"of the Lenape Nation in recognition of the good relations between
Native Americans and Swedes from colonial times to the present."13
The perceptions of an especially benevolent link between the peoples
who inhabited native North America and those Swedes who sought
to settle there thus seems alive and well and thriving in the opening
decade of the twenty-first century.
Is it possible to establish connections between this positive view
of Swedish-Indian relations in the 1600s and later Swedish fascina­tion
with native North American peoples? What lies at the heart of
this fascination? Did Swedes, in fact, develop "better" relations with
Indians than other white groups did? Swedes are not unique in terms
of their interest in Indian cultures and pasts, but is there a specific
"compassion for Indians so common among Swedes," as Ulf Beijbom
has termed it?1 4 These questions are, to my knowledge, so far unan­swered
and lead to a more serious set of concerns. Do the romantic
notions of special connections continue to invent Indians as images
of the past, firmly locked in a historic setting that disallows any
interest in present-day realities? Is, in fact, the interest in Indians not
so much a concern for Native American culture as a reflection of
Sweden's nostalgia for its premodern past, so quickly lost during the
rapid modernization of the twentieth century?
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HISTORICAL R O O T S OF SWEDISH CONTACTS WITH
NATIVE AMERICANS
Previous research, what little there is, has focused on aspects of
concrete encounters between Swedish colonists or settlers and Na­tive
American peoples. Unfortunately, there are very few such stud­ies.
Also, to the best of my knowledge, most of what work there is
has a pronounced focus on the New Sweden colony, where, as I have
indicated above, the same statements are reiterated at every anniver­sary.
Swedish immigrants also came into contact with Native Ameri­cans
during the westward expansion of the nineteenth century, how­ever.
This has rarely been a topic of study and has only viscerally
entered into migration studies, in spite of the fact that Swedish immi­grants
settled land just recently and more or less forcefully vacated
by Indians. A l b i n Widén, whose personal archives are located in the
Swedish Emigrant Institute in Växjö, wrote a book and a couple of
articles published during the early and middle part of the last century
regarding Swedish-Indian contacts, primarily in Minnesota. The most
extensive scholarly work to date on the subject is the research by Joy
Lintelman and Betty Bergland, who compare Swedish and Norwe­gian
perceptions of and relations with Indians surrounding the Min­nesota
uprising of 1862.1 5 Lintelman and Bergland identify great
similarities in the stories and reminiscences of Scandinavian relations
to and writings about Indians before the uprising. However, after the
war, Swedish and Norwegian accounts follow somewhat different
trajectories, as the Swedes focus less on violent confrontations than
Norwegians do. The most significant aspect of Lintelman and Bergland's
work, I believe, is their insistence on linking the Swedish and Norwe­gian
emigration with Western expansion and Indian loss of land.1 6 In
this context, "peaceful relations" needs some serious rethinking.
A couple of senior theses in history at Växjö University have
looked at Swedish travel narratives and descriptions of Indians. Johanna
Hedenquist analyzed a collection of letters by the railroad engineer
Harald Fegraeus. This allowed her to record his observations on
Ojibway and Dakota Indians during the last decades of the nine­teenth
century. She concludes that Fegraeus's interest in Indians was
directly tied to context. When he was participating in expeditions or
151
surveys, he frequently wrote about his encounters with Indians in a
nuanced way, whereas when he was at home his comments on Indi­ans
were infrequent and made up of stereotypes. His frame of refer­ence
was influenced by the dichotomy between civilization and bar­barism,
and he considered himself and his culture superior to Indian
ways even when he realized his need for their goods or skills in
specific situations. His understanding of Indians was greatest at the
point where he could identify the most: their struggle for protection
of land was, in his mind, tied to the sanctity of private property.17
Julia Köpsén used Fredrika Bremer's letters from the New World
to compare the nineteenth-century traveler's descriptions of Indians
and black slaves. Köpsén concluded that Bremer never showed more
than marginal interest in Indians, and her attitude towards them was
ambivalent. While the Swedish author regretted their forced removal,
she regarded it as an inevitable and natural consequence of the
westward movement of civilization. She drew a marked difference
between her observations of Indian men and women, and in her
writings she applied the dichotomy of noble savages and cruel bar­barians
to describe women and men, respectively. Perhaps, Köpsén
suggested, Bremer's lack of appreciation for Indian peoples devel­oped
as a contrast to her much more positive views on African
slaves. Indians were charged with being cold, severe, and serious;
while blacks were described as happy and devoted.18
Stefan Eldevall also looked at Bremer's writings, in addition to
several other writers of travel literature or memoirs from North
America during the second half of the nineteenth century. He stud­ied
the descriptions these travelers fashioned of the Native Ameri­cans
they encountered, or heard of, and he also focused on the
authors and their agendas. Just as in the previous studies, he found
that during this period the characterizations were framed within a
context of civilization and its opposite. The representation of the
Indian occupied a position as an antithesis to progress, and this was
particularly true of the Indian male. Racial theory and Darwinism
formed a backdrop for the descriptions; and Indians, rather than
being assimilated into modern society at a lower rung on the ladder
(like black slaves), placed themselves outside this spectrum and were,
therefore, doomed to extinction. Eldevall's study does not support
152
any claims to a special Swedish relationship to Indians. O n the con­trary,
his writers referred to common tropes when fashioning their
expectations. 19
These papers all point to the necessity for further study and
research in order to understand Swedish interactions with Native
Americans and the stories that ensued. There is nothing so far in the
findings that indicates that Swedes did indeed enjoy a particular
friendship with Indians, or that Swedes behaved themselves towards,
or expressed ideas concerning Indians markedly different from those
of other ethnic groups of colonizers and immigrants. Does that mean
that the great interest in North American Indians should be viewed
entirely as part of a generic western desire to appropriate mythic
Indian qualities to give "meaning to [people] lost in a (post)modern
freefall"?20 To answer such questions it is important to map out the
nature of interest in Indians that is in existence in Sweden at present
and during the most recent decades. In the following I will attempt
to characterize this interest through three very limited studies. These
focus on hobbyist movements, the contents of I n d i a n k l u b b e n s årsbok,
and on the availability of material for students in schools. In the last
section I am heavily indebted to the ambitious course work of my
own students.
HOBBYIST MOVEMENTS IN SWEDEN
A fascination with Indian life and history motivates widespread
hobbyist movements in many European countries, as well as in
America. This phenomenon refers to groups of individuals who are
brought together by a deep commitment to an interest in Indian
culture that often began at an early age in life. They often manifest
their interest through costume making and powwow participation—
what Philip Deloria calls "playing Indian." Many individuals who
participate in these activities possess a deep knowledge of aspects of
costume making, ceremonies, songs, and dances usually dating from
the nineteenth century and earlier. However, not all aspects of Indian
life and not all Indian peoples elicit the same attention. C o l i n F.
Taylor writes that "most individuals have a somewhat romanticized
view of Indian life, and an interest in Plains Indian culture is often
153
dominant."2 1 Hobbyism, Taylor states, is often male dominated. In
the late 1980s he wrote briefly about the movement in Sweden and
concluded that " i n contrast to American, British, and other Euro­pean
hobbyists, powwow activities and craft work seem to have
found little expression in Sweden."22
This assertion no longer is valid, and in a recent article the
historian Carl Holmberg describes the evolution of the images of
North American Indians in Sweden during the latter part of the
twentieth century. As a framework for his interpretation, he points to
profound and rapid changes that Sweden underwent in this period,
from a relatively homogenous to an increasingly multicultural soci­ety,
in a context of the decline of seemingly stable nation states and
intensifying integrationist forces through the membership in the Eu­ropean
Union. Holmberg argues that it is reasonable to assume that
the relatively stable and easily recognizable image of the North Ameri­can
Indian offered numerous possibilities for interpretation that made
it attractive in times of change. Thus, contemporary political and
cultural concerns were mirrored in the descriptions of Indians.23
In a recent work Shari Huhndorf identifies three ways in which
Europeans and white Americans "go native." The first is through
adding Indianness as an integral part of one's national or regional
identity. By doing so it is possible for Euro-Americans to distance
themselves from the displacement of Native peoples. Second, it is a
strategy for challenging capitalism and voicing a dissatisfaction with
modernity. Third, seeking recourse in things Indian appears to offer a
way to remedy a range of contemporary problems, especially issues
relating to spirituality and ecology.2 4 Interest in Indians found in
present-day Sweden would seem to fit all these categories.
The organized Swedish hobbyist interest in Indians took shape in
1959, when Olof Norbeck, a retired banker, founded Indianklubben.
Norbeck was influenced by his awareness of the New Sweden colony
and personal contacts with Delaware Indians. In his home in the
fashionable north Stockholm town of Djursholm, Norbeck created
miniatures and moulded landscapes portraying Indian life. The club
began with some 30-35 members, who met to discuss books and
films on Indians, share ethnographic and historical facts, and exhibit
photographs. The members contributed articles to a yearbook, they
154
translated books into Swedish, and some members, such as Einar
Malm, Erik "Uncas" Englund, and A l b i n Widén, published mono­graphs
on topics related to Indian history. "Uncas" Englund, a painter
from the south of Stockholm, did more than anyone else to fan a
widespread interest in Indians in Sweden when he won the popular
quiz show Tiotusenkronorsfrågan. In the late 1960s, another Indian
club was formed in Stockholm. It named itself Svensk-indianska
förbundet (The Swedish Indian League) and had a much more po­litical
profile than the earlier club. A n occasional periodical, called
I n d i a n - B u l l e t i n e n , was dedicated to voicing the wrongs committed
against Indian peoples today and concerned itself with both North
and South America. The organization recognized in the treatment of
Native Americans a fundamental conflict of an ethnic nature within
the structure of American society, and it argued for the necessity of
taking a firm stand in support of the struggles of Indians. Thus, the
magazine reported extensively from contemporary sites of conflict,
such as Wounded Knee in the 1970s. Part of their efforts also went
into sponsoring the collection of clothes, money, and other necessi­ties
for contemporary Indian needs.25
During the last decades the number of clubs has proliferated, and
I have used the Internet to try to establish an overview of clubs and
organizations found at the present in Sweden. The following is only a
partial list; I am aware of other clubs that do not have Internet sites,
and there are no doubt several others of which I have not heard.
Clubs and Organizations with a Specific Interest in Indians
Table 126
Established in
Indianklubben i Sverige
Svensk-indianska förbundet
Sioux Indian Club Sweden
High Chaparall
Free Spirits of Sweden
Föreningen Shunka / Djusalndianmuseum
Världen i våra händer
Ursprungskällan
1959
1968
1977
1966
2002
1993
??
1995
155
As mentioned above, the Indian Club of Sweden was the first
one, and this association was not tied to any political or religious
organization but open to all (above the age of eighteen) who were
interested in North American Indian history and culture. The group
is still in operation and publishes a magazine four times a year with
articles written by the members themselves. Sioux Indian Club Swe­den
is an association for all those interested in North American
Indians and their cultures, according to their homepage. The activi­ties
are centered on their "Indian village" outside of Strängnäs, on
Lake Mälaren in south central Sweden. The club holds gatherings in
the village that focus on special interests in crafts, dancing, or other
aspects of Indian traditions. Powwows are held, and there is an em­phasis
on Plains Indian culture. The group describes its areas of
interest as the following: Indian spirituality, outdoors life, crafts, shows,
and dancing. They also publish a magazine four times a year, called
Rådselden (The council fire). High Chaparall is a well-known West­ern
village, created as Sweden's first theme park in the heart of the
southern Swedish forests. It rides high on nostalgia for the Wild West
and offers Western shows, horseback riding, shoot-outs, and, at times,
Indian dancing. Free Spirits of Sweden promotes indigenous cultures
and also focuses on the preservation of local cultures ( h e m b y g d e n ).
Its primary interest is in North American Indians. Djusa Indianmuseum
in Dalarna aims to promote knowledge concerning "the North Ameri­can
Indian culture" through various activities and seeks to establish
the Indian museum as a place with a good reputation. In Halmstad,
Svensk-Indianska Förbundet is one of the liveliest organizations in
Sweden today. It used to be called Sundance, but changed the name
when they found out that it referred to a religious ceremony. Accord­ing
to information in Holmberg's article, this group grew out of the
political organization known by the same name." It offers dances, a
festival, and a camp every summer, as well as traveling exhibitions
sometimes with invited Indian dance troops.
It thus appears that Taylor's assertion that Swedish hobbyists were
less interested in powwows and crafts is no longer valid. A number of
these groups (including the ones I know about but have not found
on the Internet) focus on ethnographic detail and on dressing and
dancing as Indians. I believe, tentatively, that a continuum exists
156
between endeavors created solely on the basis of the historical en­chantment
of the Western era, such as High Chaparall, and the New
Age-influenced interests evident in Free Spirits of Sweden.28 Ele­ments
that tie these associations to one another include an interest in
and fascination with Plains Indian cultural expressions of the nine­teenth
century, especially Indian dancing and music. C u l t u r e is the
catchword that binds these ventures together. As Colin Taylor has
pointed out, hobbyist Indian activities are primarily a male interest,
and there is a preponderance of male names featured in these organi­zations.
However, it may be so that a focus on New Age spirituality
attracts women to as great an extent as men. It is noticeable that
some of the most extensive homepages with material concerning
Native Americans are operated and compiled by women.
A distinctly different type of interest group is made up of organi­zations
dedicated to influence present day politics concerning indig­enous
peoples. The best known of these in Sweden is Fjärde Världen
(The fourth world). Partly growing out of Svensk-Indianska Förbundet
of the 1960s and 1970s, this organization focuses on contemporary
issues and devotes interest to all areas of indigenous concern around
the world. There are no discernable links between this kind of inter­est
and that of the hobbyists. For instance, they do not refer to one
another in their links to related web pages.
SWEDISH LITERATURE O N INDIANS
While live reenactment of Indian life is a highly visible aspect of
the Indian interest around the world, the most widespread and pow­erful
expression of this interest is found in the publication and dis­semination
of literature. Christian Feest identified the works of Stig
Ericson and Helmer Linderholm as the foremost Swedish examples of
the genre of Indian stories.29 But the yearbooks of Indianklubben are
(or were) perhaps the most influential books on the subject in Swe­den.
For many Swedes, their introduction to Indian history and cul­ture
came through the yearbooks. The first one appeared in 1962,
and the latest one that I have looked at is from 1995. The format is
that of the anthology, with short pieces on various topics regarding
Indians, primarily North American Indians. I went through ten of
157
these books, covering the thirty-year period of 1965-1995; a catego­rization
of the content looks as follows.
Table 230
Topic Number of Articles
Biographies of chiefs or notable persons
(of these, the number of men) 27 (26)
Specific tribal descriptions 16
Wars and battles 15
General descriptions of North American
Indians 13
Miscellaneous 13
Swedish-Indian contacts 7
Religion 1
Indian women 1
In addition to these articles, each yearbook volume also contains
a section on recommended literature that has come to the attention
of the association. Biographies are by far the most popular items, and
this is also evident through the publication of two volumes dedicated
to biographical sketches of notable Native Americans throughout
history. There is a preponderance of Plains Indian personalities in
these collections, and out of one hundred sketches only four are of
women.3 1 The mission statement of Indianklubben, as expressed in
the introduction to the volumes, emphasizes the romantic fascination
with great heroes, violent confrontations, and the very masculine
characteristics of the pursuit. A l b i n Widén wrote in the introduction
to the 1968 volume S t r i d s y x a och f r e d s p i p a (War club and peace pipe):
Although we do not pass the peace pipe around, we do
allow the Indian romance to bloom among ethnographic
facts and aspects of history. Because that is the fascination in
the study of North America's Indians—even as we want to
avoid embellishing their often hard and toilsome existence.
Their history, the struggle between different tribes and the
battle against white intruders, their hunts and wild rides,
158
their descent down rapids in unsteady birch-bark canoes,
their ability to travel unnoticed through the terrain as scouts
and hunters—all this is clothed in the glow of Great Adven­ture
and touches every one who still retains his boyhood
spirit.3 2
Seven of the articles deal with Swedish relations with Indians.
Four of them are written by A l b i n Widén and two by Olof Norbeck,
and these relate to Delaware Indians; the last piece is by Lars-Erik
Jansson and Lars Ryding. While not overly romanticizing these rela­tions,
the articles nonetheless like to end by reiterating that, in gen­eral,
friendly relations prevailed. Jansson and Ryding, for example,
conclude by relating anecdotal evidence that Indians still place flow­ers
on the grave of Swedish painter Gustav Hesselius, and Widén
ends one of his articles by stating that " i n general it can be said that
Swedish settlers understood the art of maintaining neighborly peace
with the red hunters."33
SCHOOL BOOKS A N D LIBRARY BOOKS FOR CHILDREN
A very limited survey of one local library of generally high qual­ity,
Jönköpings Stadsbibliotek, revealed that a search on the term
i n d i a n e r yielded considerably more than 200 hits, while, as a com­parison,
the term samer (Saami) only returned 158 hits. Of the titles
on Indians, the largest category was books deemed suitable for adult
readers, but the category for children was almost the same size. The
majority of titles dealing with Indians were catalogued under the
heading K (history), followed by M (anthropology), while the Saami
titles were almost exclusively under the headings of M or N (geogra­phy).
This may be compared to a survey of literature available at
two schools (primary and secondary levels) in Växjö, which revealed
that material on Indians far exceeded that on the Saami. The books
dealing with Indians were generally of an older date, while Saami
literature was produced in the 1990s and onward. Books on Indians
tended to generalize about Indian culture and focus on ethnographic
detail from the past. Of thirteen surveyed titles, not one was written
or co-written by a person of Indian origin; whereas Saami books,
159
though fewer, had Saami authors and focused more on present-day
situations and on conflicts inherent in living in two worlds. Another
survey of audiovisual media for schools found a significant number of
items concerning Indians. One student compared the content in
material regarding Indians and Saami and found that while there
were approximately the same number of films or programs on loan
relating to each people, the emphasis differed noticeably. The films
on Indians primarily focused on history; while the material on the
Saami emphasized the present situation.34
A study carried out in two high school classes (approximately 60
students) in Växjö in 2001 showed that 65 percent of the students
were interested or very interested in Indians and Indian culture.
(Another survey of students in the ages of 10-15 revealed that they
were considerably more interested in learning about Indians than
about Saami.) The students ranked movies as their prime source of
information on Indians, but a surprisingly high number, 50 percent,
also mentioned school education as an important influence. This
warranted a closer look at the information contained in educational
material.
A n overview of the school books used revealed Indians as his­toric
and passive background figures. The books on history in which
Indians were found generally offered simple answers to complex his­torical
situations. Indian peoples and their culture and society were
compared with the Western world and almost always found lacking.
Indian cultures were overwhelmingly cast in the past tense. The high
cultures of Mesoamerica and South America were discussed as "sur­prising,"
and barbaric aspects of rituals were emphasized. In contrast,
popular culture representations of Indians more often portray them
as noble, stress connections to nature and spirituality, and offer up
Indians as alternatives to what is presented as decadent modern
societies. The high school students were found to be rather critical of
descriptions of Indians as cruel and bloodthirsty and much more
willing to embrace without question portrayals sympathetic or ro­manticizing
towards Indians. Many students believed that a true im­age
of Indians appears in shows and movies such as Pocahontas,
Dances with W o l v e s , and Dr. Q u i n n , M e d i c i n e W o m a n . In spite of their
differences, however, both educational material and popular culture
162
9. Ibid., 24.
10. Aleksander Loit, "Sveriges kolonilotter," in Den dolda historien. 27 uppsatser
om vårt okända förflutna, ed. Ronny Ambjörnsson och David Gaunt (Malmö:
Författarförlaget, 1984), 380-81.
11. Terry G . Jordan and Matti Kaups, The American Backwoods Frontier: A n
Ethnic and Ecological Interpretation (Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins
University Press, 1989), 89, 90. See also Jay Miller, "Blending Worlds," in The
Native Americans: An lllustrated History, ed. David Hurst Thomas, Betty Ballantine,
and Ian Ballantine (Atlanta: Turner Publishing, Inc. 1993), 193: "Only the
short-lived Swedish colony managed to live peacefully with its Indian neigh­bors
The Finns shared with the Indians a mixed economy of hunting, fishing,
and farming. They knew how to live i n the forest and rely o n neighbors. A n d
when natives and Swedes met, they shared their knowledge and experience with
each other. So natives learned from the Swedes how to build log cabins and
make splint baskets; and in return they taught the Swedes how to grow corn and
net fish."
12. Nils Erik Baehrendtz, "Nybyggarnas indianska grannar," in Ruhnbro, Det
Nya Sverige, 116; for similar statements in other commemorative materials from
1988, see The New Sweden Project and "Sverige-Amerika under 350 år," special
section, Jönköpings-Posten, 22 March 1988.
13. See: http://www.colonialswedes.org.Headlines.CPVl.html, 28 July 2003.
14. U l f Beijbom, "Svenskar och indianer. Efterskrift," in Lansens folk, Henrik
Larsson, (Växjö: Emigrantinstitutets vänner, 1996), 162.
15. A n event when Dakota Indians under the war chief Little Crow re­belled
against the appalling conditions on the reservation to which they had
been referred. In particular, they were aggravated by a lack of provisions that
they had been promised in a treaty. The war was short but very intensive, with a
large number of settlers—among them several Swedes and Norwegians—being
killed, and it ended only when troops were brought in. Thirty-two Indians were
sentenced to death by hanging.
16. Joy Lintelman and Betty Bergland, "Scandinavian Immigrants and In­digenous
Peoples: Ethnicity, Gender, and Colonial Encounters in Midwestern
Regions of the United States, 1830-1930" (unpublished conference paper, Inter­national
Federation for Research in Women's History Conference, Oslo, 2000).
On Swedes and the Minnesota conflict, see also Larry Lundblad, "The Impact of
Minnesota's Dakota Conflict of 1863 on the Swedish Settlers," The Swedish-
American Historical Quarterly 51, no. 3 (July 2000): 209-21.
17. Johanna Hedenquist, " En klarsynt man? Möten mellan en svensk emi­grant
och nordamerikanska indianer under 1800-talets sista decennier" (senior
thesis in history, D level, Växjö University, 1998).
18. Julia Köpsén, "Fredrika Bremers syn på indianerna" (senior thesis in
163
history, C level, Uppsala University, 1996).
19. Stefan Eldevall, "'Naturbarn begåfvade med många goda och många
dåliga egenskaper': Synen på den nordamerikanska urbefolkningen i svenska
reseskildringar och memoarer från 1853-1891" (senior thesis in history, C level,
Lund University, 2003).
20. C o l i n G . Calloway, Gerd Gemunden, and Susanne Zantop, eds., Ger­mans
and Indians: Fantasies, Encounters, Projections (Lincoln: University of Ne­braska
Press, 2002); Philip J. Deloria, Playing Indian (New Haven: Yale Univer­sity
Press, 1998), 7.
21. C o l i n F. Taylor, "The Indian Hobbyist Movement in Europe," in Hand­book
of N o r t h American Indians, vol. 4: History of Indian-White Relations (Wash­ington:
Smithsonian Institution 1988), 562.
22. Ibid., 567.
23. Holmberg, 43-44.
24. Shari M . Huhndorf, Going Native: Indians in the American Cultural Imagi­nation
(Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2001), 6-18.
25. Holmberg, 50-52.
26. See: http://members.tripod.eom/nafets77/fack/faos.htm#LENI, 2 Novem­ber
2003; http://www.indianbyn.nu, 23 July 2003; http://www
.freespiritsofsweden.com, 23 July 2003; http://www.svif.org/sve/sidan.html, 23
July 2003; http://www.geocities.com/outsidepix2000/indianl.html, 23 July 2003;
http://home.swipnet.se/indianmuseum/shunka.htm, 23 July 2003
27. Holmberg, 58.
28. Holmberg's focus on change over time allows h im to identify a progres­sion
with New Age interests displacing an earlier historical romanticism during
the 1990s. I only add that, while they may have developed into organized
interests at various times, it is now possible to find among the Swedish organiza­tion
dedicated to Indians' several different kinds of interests.
29. Christian F. Feest, "The Indian in Non-English Literature," in Handbook
of N o r t h American Indians, vol. 4, 586.
30. Yvonne Svenström, ed., Amerika är vårt (Stockholm: Lindqvists förlag,
1997); Svenström, Attack i gryningen (Stockholm: Plus förlag, 1978); Lennart
Lindberg, ed., Berömda indianer och spejare i Nordamerikas historia (Stockholm:
Nybloms förlag, 1983); Lennart Lindberg and Lars Wennersten, eds., Indiansk
höst (Stockholm: Nybloms förlag, 1982); Erik "Uncas" Englund and A l b i n Widén,
eds., Kungsörn och Kondor: Indianklubbens årsbok 1971 (Stockholm: Norstedts
förlag 1971); Lennart Lindberg, ed., Nya Indianboken: Biografisk handbok
(Stockholm: Valentin förlag, 1995); Erik "Uncas" Englund and A l b i n Widén,
ed., Spår mot väster (Stockholm: Lindqvists förlag, 1965); A l b i n Widén, ed.,
Striden vid Pierre's Hole: En samling av Indianklubbens bästa berättelser
(Stockholm:Lindqvists förlag, 1975); Erik "Uncas" Englund, ed., Stridsyxa och
164
fredspipa: Indianklubbens årsbok 1968 (Stockholm: Norstedts förlag, 1968); Så
länge gräset växer . . . (Stockholm: Nybloms förlag, 1984).
31. This observation seems to hold true also for other books published for
a popular audience. There is an emphasis on Plains tribes during the nineteenth
century, and on male pursuits in, for instance, Henrik Larsson's books.
32. Englund, ed., Stridsyxa och fredspipa, 5.
33. Lindberg and Wennersten, Indiansk höst, 80; Widén, Striden, 144. Holmberg
(48) notes an emphasis on immigration; and, although violence and conflicts
were often the main focus, a general trait in the publications of the 1960s was a
search for reconciliation and mutual understanding between Indians and Swed­ish
settlers.
34. Notes from class (HIB140:4 "Saamis and Indians Meet European Colo­nizers"),
Växjö University, fall 2001 and 2002.
35. Linda Steneros and Ulrika Sigfridsson, "Bilden av Indianens h i s t o r i a -
en studie av läromedel och populärkultur" (senior thesis in history, B level,
Växjö University 2001); Sofia Kruse, "Indianer i läroböckerna i historia för
gymnasiet kurs A " (senior thesis in history, C level, Växjö University, 2001);
Ann-Charlotte Gårdhed, "Samernas förekomst i undervisning i grundskolan"
(senior thesis in history, B level, Växjö University, 2002).

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Romantic Relations:
Swedish Attitudes towards Indians during
the Twentieth Century
G U N L Ö G F U R
Many Swedes have had a love affair with their image of
North American Indians throughout the past century. And,
if the latest signs are anything to go by, this affection is not
waning. In the summer of 2003, a campaign to encourage children to
protect themselves against the harmful rays of the sun enlisted the
help of images of Indians on the North American prairies, invoking
their supposedly healthy practice of hiding in their teepee(s) during
the hottest hours of the day as a good example for young Swedish
children to follow.1 A special affinity has long been part and parcel of
at least some very influential stories concerning relationships be­tween
Swedes and Indians. Some of these images originated in the
aftermath of Swedish colonization on the Delaware River in the
seventeenth century and are reiterated every time the colony is com­memorated—
usually every fifty years or so.2
" I n d i a n e r och svenskar voro de bästa vänner i k o l o n i e n D e l a w a r e"
(Swedes and Indians were the best of friends in the Delaware colony)
was the headline of an article in the leftist newspaper A r b e t e t on 21
January 1929. The article continued by stating that while the Swed­ish
state did not have sufficient resources to keep the piece of land
that it had bought in an honest manner, the colonists nonetheless
sought to "behave in a more humane manner towards the natives
than contemporary robber nations."3 The writer emphasized peaceful
exchange and lively commerce between the parties and added that
instructions enjoined the Swedes "not to use slaves, such as other
exploiters, but to seek peaceful cooperation with the Indians." A n
often-cited story, first published i n the travel journal by Peter
Lindeström, that in 1655 the Indians (it is somewhat unclear which
nation) attacked the Dutch in Manhattan to avenge the Hollanders'
aggression towards the Swedish colony, was recirculated and embel-
146
lished: "The Swedes experienced cruelties but they still had the Indi­ans
as their defenders and in general Swedish homes were reached
only over the dead bodies of Delaware Indians." Finally, the article
suggested that the "wild tribes" admired the Swedes for their rejec¬
tion of slavery.4
Swedish stories of a special relationship with Indians seem to
have their origin in the decades following the loss of the New Swe­den
colony, first to the superior forces of the Dutch and then to the
English. The historical evidence in support of such an alliance is slim.
Yet, the stories appear every time the colony is mentioned, and the
idea does not seem to weaken its hold on Swedes. Laudatory histo­ries
published in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries proclaimed
this particular friendship. Not only Swedes spread this image, but so
did American authors.5 Later generations of historians changed their
language, but the sentiment remained. The year 1938 marked the
300t h anniversary of the colony, and while the preparations for this
celebration were under way historian Nils Ahnlund caused a stir in a
presentation to the Swedish Society for Anthropology and Geogra­phy.
He described the Great Power of Sweden as a feeble colonizer
and drew the ire of listeners who preferred to view the seventeenth
century in terms of the country's peak as a powerful nation. But his
comments regarding the relationship between the Swedish colonists
and the Indians remained uncontroversial:
That the Swedes have had a good hand with the natives
is an old, and in terms of our national sensitivity, satisfying
notion, which fortunately can be maintained, particularly if
one looks at the larger picture. . . . New Sweden was always
spared the furious Indian feuds of the kind that the larger
Dutch establishment was exposed to.6
Ahnlund managed to portray colonial Sweden as both active
and dominant ("they had a good hand with the natives") and passive
and gentle ("they were spared the furious feuds"), and together these
pronouncements produced the same conclusion: Sweden was a "good"
colonizer.
This dual approach, mild and strong at the same time, reverber­ated
throughout the commemorations of 1938. For example, when
Crown Prince Gustaf Adolf addressed an American audience during
147
the highly publicized celebrations at the site of the Delaware colony,
he said:
The relations of the Swedish colonists to the Indians
were always friendly. By treating the native tribes in a hu­mane
manner they won their friendship, and I think this
policy explains why the Delaware Valley did not have the
sanguinary Indian wars experienced in other colonies.7
He described how the first pastor to the small Swedish settle­ment,
Johannes Campanius, had labored to translate Luther's cat­echism
into the Lenape language. Published in 1696 as the second
volume ever printed in an Indian language, it displayed a frontispiece
showing the Swedish coat of arms flanked by the emblem of M o d e r
Svea on one side and "by an Indian chieftain in full war dress" on the
other. "This equitable attitude toward the Indians," stated the Crown
Prince, "is very characteristic of the whole book." He went on to say
that, in the author's words, we find "a spirit of tolerance exceptional
in the century when they were written."8
United States Secretary of State Cordell Hull seemed to agree
with Swedish contemporaries both on the assessment of Sweden as a
remarkable power of the period and on its commendable Indian
relations. After applauding the skill, strength, and power of King
Gustaf II Adolf and the Swedish military force, he described its
arrival in the New World:
The flood tide of Swedish power had touched at last the
shores of the New World. . . . The manner of the first contact
is not without significance. Though the first colonists were
soldiers, no violence marked their arrival. Without threats,
without force, following the manner of just men they chose
the land they needed and negotiated for its purchase. No
Indian wars, no savage massacres, mar the annals of New
Sweden on the Delaware.9
The peaceful relationship between Swedes and Indians served
both to demonstrate Sweden's power as a colonizer and her special
148
democratic and humanistic principles. The outcome of the first en­counters
between natives and newcomers hinged exclusively on the
behavior of the Swedes and the character they displayed, and Hull
applauded the early colonists' "possession of those qualities of integ­rity
and strength of character" which contributed to these well or­dered
relations.
After half a century, one world war, and universal decolonization,
the language regarding the Swedish colony remained remarkably
unchanged. Thus Aleksander Loit, not otherwise noted for his lauda­tory
treatment of colonization, wrote briefly in 1984 in one of the
few articles to deal with Sweden's colonial past that "the relation of
the colonists towards the Indians living in the neighborhood appears
to have been more or less free from problems. The Swedish authori­ties
were eager to maintain correct relations with the indigenous
population." A n illustration from Thomas Campanius Holm's 1702
book portraying friendly interaction corroborates this.1 0 In 1989 Terry
G. Jordan and Matti Kaups published a work that perhaps expresses
the mutual affinity of Finns, Swedes, and Indians more clearly than
any other. They argued that the Finnish colonists in particular brought
along experiences of having associated with indigenous peoples through
their previous contacts with Saami people. They also came from a
culture of forest shamanism, and these two features meant that the
meeting between Finnish colonists and Lenape Indians "was a con­frontation
of two like peoples." The consequence was an association
in which "local Delaware Indians called the Finns and Swedes akoores
or n i t t a p p i ('friend,' 'fellow tribesmen,' or 'those who are like us'),
acknowledging the similarity, and they had a different collective
word, senaares, for the English, Germans, and Dutch, whom they
properly regarded as alien." 1 1
This evaluation of Swedish (and Finnish) relations with Indians
occurred both in scholarly works and in popular histories and news­paper
articles. While scholars have become somewhat more cautious
in their presentations, the expressions in popular works have re­mained
unequivocally congratulatory. In 1988, for example, at the
350t h anniversary of the founding of the colony, Nils Erik Baehrendtz
wrote:
149
That Indians and colonists could associate in a friendly
manner with each other does credit to both parties. The
Swedes treated their Indian neighbors justly and with hu­manity.
They never attacked the Indians and never were
guilty of such massacres as the English and Dutch committed
against the Indians and that affected not only the warriors
but also women and children. . . . In comparison the Swedish
colonists' friendly contacts with their Indian neighbors is an
idyllic example.12
The year 2003 marked a celebration of the 365 years that had
passed since the first Swedish ships laid anchor at what is now
Wilmington, Delaware. Crown Princess Victoria was scheduled to
visit the region during the month of April to "honor New Sweden
Pioneers." Her itinerary included Swedish heritage sites in Pennsylva­nia,
Delaware, and New Jersey, and she also met with representatives
"of the Lenape Nation in recognition of the good relations between
Native Americans and Swedes from colonial times to the present."13
The perceptions of an especially benevolent link between the peoples
who inhabited native North America and those Swedes who sought
to settle there thus seems alive and well and thriving in the opening
decade of the twenty-first century.
Is it possible to establish connections between this positive view
of Swedish-Indian relations in the 1600s and later Swedish fascina­tion
with native North American peoples? What lies at the heart of
this fascination? Did Swedes, in fact, develop "better" relations with
Indians than other white groups did? Swedes are not unique in terms
of their interest in Indian cultures and pasts, but is there a specific
"compassion for Indians so common among Swedes," as Ulf Beijbom
has termed it?1 4 These questions are, to my knowledge, so far unan­swered
and lead to a more serious set of concerns. Do the romantic
notions of special connections continue to invent Indians as images
of the past, firmly locked in a historic setting that disallows any
interest in present-day realities? Is, in fact, the interest in Indians not
so much a concern for Native American culture as a reflection of
Sweden's nostalgia for its premodern past, so quickly lost during the
rapid modernization of the twentieth century?
150
HISTORICAL R O O T S OF SWEDISH CONTACTS WITH
NATIVE AMERICANS
Previous research, what little there is, has focused on aspects of
concrete encounters between Swedish colonists or settlers and Na­tive
American peoples. Unfortunately, there are very few such stud­ies.
Also, to the best of my knowledge, most of what work there is
has a pronounced focus on the New Sweden colony, where, as I have
indicated above, the same statements are reiterated at every anniver­sary.
Swedish immigrants also came into contact with Native Ameri­cans
during the westward expansion of the nineteenth century, how­ever.
This has rarely been a topic of study and has only viscerally
entered into migration studies, in spite of the fact that Swedish immi­grants
settled land just recently and more or less forcefully vacated
by Indians. A l b i n Widén, whose personal archives are located in the
Swedish Emigrant Institute in Växjö, wrote a book and a couple of
articles published during the early and middle part of the last century
regarding Swedish-Indian contacts, primarily in Minnesota. The most
extensive scholarly work to date on the subject is the research by Joy
Lintelman and Betty Bergland, who compare Swedish and Norwe­gian
perceptions of and relations with Indians surrounding the Min­nesota
uprising of 1862.1 5 Lintelman and Bergland identify great
similarities in the stories and reminiscences of Scandinavian relations
to and writings about Indians before the uprising. However, after the
war, Swedish and Norwegian accounts follow somewhat different
trajectories, as the Swedes focus less on violent confrontations than
Norwegians do. The most significant aspect of Lintelman and Bergland's
work, I believe, is their insistence on linking the Swedish and Norwe­gian
emigration with Western expansion and Indian loss of land.1 6 In
this context, "peaceful relations" needs some serious rethinking.
A couple of senior theses in history at Växjö University have
looked at Swedish travel narratives and descriptions of Indians. Johanna
Hedenquist analyzed a collection of letters by the railroad engineer
Harald Fegraeus. This allowed her to record his observations on
Ojibway and Dakota Indians during the last decades of the nine­teenth
century. She concludes that Fegraeus's interest in Indians was
directly tied to context. When he was participating in expeditions or
151
surveys, he frequently wrote about his encounters with Indians in a
nuanced way, whereas when he was at home his comments on Indi­ans
were infrequent and made up of stereotypes. His frame of refer­ence
was influenced by the dichotomy between civilization and bar­barism,
and he considered himself and his culture superior to Indian
ways even when he realized his need for their goods or skills in
specific situations. His understanding of Indians was greatest at the
point where he could identify the most: their struggle for protection
of land was, in his mind, tied to the sanctity of private property.17
Julia Köpsén used Fredrika Bremer's letters from the New World
to compare the nineteenth-century traveler's descriptions of Indians
and black slaves. Köpsén concluded that Bremer never showed more
than marginal interest in Indians, and her attitude towards them was
ambivalent. While the Swedish author regretted their forced removal,
she regarded it as an inevitable and natural consequence of the
westward movement of civilization. She drew a marked difference
between her observations of Indian men and women, and in her
writings she applied the dichotomy of noble savages and cruel bar­barians
to describe women and men, respectively. Perhaps, Köpsén
suggested, Bremer's lack of appreciation for Indian peoples devel­oped
as a contrast to her much more positive views on African
slaves. Indians were charged with being cold, severe, and serious;
while blacks were described as happy and devoted.18
Stefan Eldevall also looked at Bremer's writings, in addition to
several other writers of travel literature or memoirs from North
America during the second half of the nineteenth century. He stud­ied
the descriptions these travelers fashioned of the Native Ameri­cans
they encountered, or heard of, and he also focused on the
authors and their agendas. Just as in the previous studies, he found
that during this period the characterizations were framed within a
context of civilization and its opposite. The representation of the
Indian occupied a position as an antithesis to progress, and this was
particularly true of the Indian male. Racial theory and Darwinism
formed a backdrop for the descriptions; and Indians, rather than
being assimilated into modern society at a lower rung on the ladder
(like black slaves), placed themselves outside this spectrum and were,
therefore, doomed to extinction. Eldevall's study does not support
152
any claims to a special Swedish relationship to Indians. O n the con­trary,
his writers referred to common tropes when fashioning their
expectations. 19
These papers all point to the necessity for further study and
research in order to understand Swedish interactions with Native
Americans and the stories that ensued. There is nothing so far in the
findings that indicates that Swedes did indeed enjoy a particular
friendship with Indians, or that Swedes behaved themselves towards,
or expressed ideas concerning Indians markedly different from those
of other ethnic groups of colonizers and immigrants. Does that mean
that the great interest in North American Indians should be viewed
entirely as part of a generic western desire to appropriate mythic
Indian qualities to give "meaning to [people] lost in a (post)modern
freefall"?20 To answer such questions it is important to map out the
nature of interest in Indians that is in existence in Sweden at present
and during the most recent decades. In the following I will attempt
to characterize this interest through three very limited studies. These
focus on hobbyist movements, the contents of I n d i a n k l u b b e n s årsbok,
and on the availability of material for students in schools. In the last
section I am heavily indebted to the ambitious course work of my
own students.
HOBBYIST MOVEMENTS IN SWEDEN
A fascination with Indian life and history motivates widespread
hobbyist movements in many European countries, as well as in
America. This phenomenon refers to groups of individuals who are
brought together by a deep commitment to an interest in Indian
culture that often began at an early age in life. They often manifest
their interest through costume making and powwow participation—
what Philip Deloria calls "playing Indian." Many individuals who
participate in these activities possess a deep knowledge of aspects of
costume making, ceremonies, songs, and dances usually dating from
the nineteenth century and earlier. However, not all aspects of Indian
life and not all Indian peoples elicit the same attention. C o l i n F.
Taylor writes that "most individuals have a somewhat romanticized
view of Indian life, and an interest in Plains Indian culture is often
153
dominant."2 1 Hobbyism, Taylor states, is often male dominated. In
the late 1980s he wrote briefly about the movement in Sweden and
concluded that " i n contrast to American, British, and other Euro­pean
hobbyists, powwow activities and craft work seem to have
found little expression in Sweden."22
This assertion no longer is valid, and in a recent article the
historian Carl Holmberg describes the evolution of the images of
North American Indians in Sweden during the latter part of the
twentieth century. As a framework for his interpretation, he points to
profound and rapid changes that Sweden underwent in this period,
from a relatively homogenous to an increasingly multicultural soci­ety,
in a context of the decline of seemingly stable nation states and
intensifying integrationist forces through the membership in the Eu­ropean
Union. Holmberg argues that it is reasonable to assume that
the relatively stable and easily recognizable image of the North Ameri­can
Indian offered numerous possibilities for interpretation that made
it attractive in times of change. Thus, contemporary political and
cultural concerns were mirrored in the descriptions of Indians.23
In a recent work Shari Huhndorf identifies three ways in which
Europeans and white Americans "go native." The first is through
adding Indianness as an integral part of one's national or regional
identity. By doing so it is possible for Euro-Americans to distance
themselves from the displacement of Native peoples. Second, it is a
strategy for challenging capitalism and voicing a dissatisfaction with
modernity. Third, seeking recourse in things Indian appears to offer a
way to remedy a range of contemporary problems, especially issues
relating to spirituality and ecology.2 4 Interest in Indians found in
present-day Sweden would seem to fit all these categories.
The organized Swedish hobbyist interest in Indians took shape in
1959, when Olof Norbeck, a retired banker, founded Indianklubben.
Norbeck was influenced by his awareness of the New Sweden colony
and personal contacts with Delaware Indians. In his home in the
fashionable north Stockholm town of Djursholm, Norbeck created
miniatures and moulded landscapes portraying Indian life. The club
began with some 30-35 members, who met to discuss books and
films on Indians, share ethnographic and historical facts, and exhibit
photographs. The members contributed articles to a yearbook, they
154
translated books into Swedish, and some members, such as Einar
Malm, Erik "Uncas" Englund, and A l b i n Widén, published mono­graphs
on topics related to Indian history. "Uncas" Englund, a painter
from the south of Stockholm, did more than anyone else to fan a
widespread interest in Indians in Sweden when he won the popular
quiz show Tiotusenkronorsfrågan. In the late 1960s, another Indian
club was formed in Stockholm. It named itself Svensk-indianska
förbundet (The Swedish Indian League) and had a much more po­litical
profile than the earlier club. A n occasional periodical, called
I n d i a n - B u l l e t i n e n , was dedicated to voicing the wrongs committed
against Indian peoples today and concerned itself with both North
and South America. The organization recognized in the treatment of
Native Americans a fundamental conflict of an ethnic nature within
the structure of American society, and it argued for the necessity of
taking a firm stand in support of the struggles of Indians. Thus, the
magazine reported extensively from contemporary sites of conflict,
such as Wounded Knee in the 1970s. Part of their efforts also went
into sponsoring the collection of clothes, money, and other necessi­ties
for contemporary Indian needs.25
During the last decades the number of clubs has proliferated, and
I have used the Internet to try to establish an overview of clubs and
organizations found at the present in Sweden. The following is only a
partial list; I am aware of other clubs that do not have Internet sites,
and there are no doubt several others of which I have not heard.
Clubs and Organizations with a Specific Interest in Indians
Table 126
Established in
Indianklubben i Sverige
Svensk-indianska förbundet
Sioux Indian Club Sweden
High Chaparall
Free Spirits of Sweden
Föreningen Shunka / Djusalndianmuseum
Världen i våra händer
Ursprungskällan
1959
1968
1977
1966
2002
1993
??
1995
155
As mentioned above, the Indian Club of Sweden was the first
one, and this association was not tied to any political or religious
organization but open to all (above the age of eighteen) who were
interested in North American Indian history and culture. The group
is still in operation and publishes a magazine four times a year with
articles written by the members themselves. Sioux Indian Club Swe­den
is an association for all those interested in North American
Indians and their cultures, according to their homepage. The activi­ties
are centered on their "Indian village" outside of Strängnäs, on
Lake Mälaren in south central Sweden. The club holds gatherings in
the village that focus on special interests in crafts, dancing, or other
aspects of Indian traditions. Powwows are held, and there is an em­phasis
on Plains Indian culture. The group describes its areas of
interest as the following: Indian spirituality, outdoors life, crafts, shows,
and dancing. They also publish a magazine four times a year, called
Rådselden (The council fire). High Chaparall is a well-known West­ern
village, created as Sweden's first theme park in the heart of the
southern Swedish forests. It rides high on nostalgia for the Wild West
and offers Western shows, horseback riding, shoot-outs, and, at times,
Indian dancing. Free Spirits of Sweden promotes indigenous cultures
and also focuses on the preservation of local cultures ( h e m b y g d e n ).
Its primary interest is in North American Indians. Djusa Indianmuseum
in Dalarna aims to promote knowledge concerning "the North Ameri­can
Indian culture" through various activities and seeks to establish
the Indian museum as a place with a good reputation. In Halmstad,
Svensk-Indianska Förbundet is one of the liveliest organizations in
Sweden today. It used to be called Sundance, but changed the name
when they found out that it referred to a religious ceremony. Accord­ing
to information in Holmberg's article, this group grew out of the
political organization known by the same name." It offers dances, a
festival, and a camp every summer, as well as traveling exhibitions
sometimes with invited Indian dance troops.
It thus appears that Taylor's assertion that Swedish hobbyists were
less interested in powwows and crafts is no longer valid. A number of
these groups (including the ones I know about but have not found
on the Internet) focus on ethnographic detail and on dressing and
dancing as Indians. I believe, tentatively, that a continuum exists
156
between endeavors created solely on the basis of the historical en­chantment
of the Western era, such as High Chaparall, and the New
Age-influenced interests evident in Free Spirits of Sweden.28 Ele­ments
that tie these associations to one another include an interest in
and fascination with Plains Indian cultural expressions of the nine­teenth
century, especially Indian dancing and music. C u l t u r e is the
catchword that binds these ventures together. As Colin Taylor has
pointed out, hobbyist Indian activities are primarily a male interest,
and there is a preponderance of male names featured in these organi­zations.
However, it may be so that a focus on New Age spirituality
attracts women to as great an extent as men. It is noticeable that
some of the most extensive homepages with material concerning
Native Americans are operated and compiled by women.
A distinctly different type of interest group is made up of organi­zations
dedicated to influence present day politics concerning indig­enous
peoples. The best known of these in Sweden is Fjärde Världen
(The fourth world). Partly growing out of Svensk-Indianska Förbundet
of the 1960s and 1970s, this organization focuses on contemporary
issues and devotes interest to all areas of indigenous concern around
the world. There are no discernable links between this kind of inter­est
and that of the hobbyists. For instance, they do not refer to one
another in their links to related web pages.
SWEDISH LITERATURE O N INDIANS
While live reenactment of Indian life is a highly visible aspect of
the Indian interest around the world, the most widespread and pow­erful
expression of this interest is found in the publication and dis­semination
of literature. Christian Feest identified the works of Stig
Ericson and Helmer Linderholm as the foremost Swedish examples of
the genre of Indian stories.29 But the yearbooks of Indianklubben are
(or were) perhaps the most influential books on the subject in Swe­den.
For many Swedes, their introduction to Indian history and cul­ture
came through the yearbooks. The first one appeared in 1962,
and the latest one that I have looked at is from 1995. The format is
that of the anthology, with short pieces on various topics regarding
Indians, primarily North American Indians. I went through ten of
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these books, covering the thirty-year period of 1965-1995; a catego­rization
of the content looks as follows.
Table 230
Topic Number of Articles
Biographies of chiefs or notable persons
(of these, the number of men) 27 (26)
Specific tribal descriptions 16
Wars and battles 15
General descriptions of North American
Indians 13
Miscellaneous 13
Swedish-Indian contacts 7
Religion 1
Indian women 1
In addition to these articles, each yearbook volume also contains
a section on recommended literature that has come to the attention
of the association. Biographies are by far the most popular items, and
this is also evident through the publication of two volumes dedicated
to biographical sketches of notable Native Americans throughout
history. There is a preponderance of Plains Indian personalities in
these collections, and out of one hundred sketches only four are of
women.3 1 The mission statement of Indianklubben, as expressed in
the introduction to the volumes, emphasizes the romantic fascination
with great heroes, violent confrontations, and the very masculine
characteristics of the pursuit. A l b i n Widén wrote in the introduction
to the 1968 volume S t r i d s y x a och f r e d s p i p a (War club and peace pipe):
Although we do not pass the peace pipe around, we do
allow the Indian romance to bloom among ethnographic
facts and aspects of history. Because that is the fascination in
the study of North America's Indians—even as we want to
avoid embellishing their often hard and toilsome existence.
Their history, the struggle between different tribes and the
battle against white intruders, their hunts and wild rides,
158
their descent down rapids in unsteady birch-bark canoes,
their ability to travel unnoticed through the terrain as scouts
and hunters—all this is clothed in the glow of Great Adven­ture
and touches every one who still retains his boyhood
spirit.3 2
Seven of the articles deal with Swedish relations with Indians.
Four of them are written by A l b i n Widén and two by Olof Norbeck,
and these relate to Delaware Indians; the last piece is by Lars-Erik
Jansson and Lars Ryding. While not overly romanticizing these rela­tions,
the articles nonetheless like to end by reiterating that, in gen­eral,
friendly relations prevailed. Jansson and Ryding, for example,
conclude by relating anecdotal evidence that Indians still place flow­ers
on the grave of Swedish painter Gustav Hesselius, and Widén
ends one of his articles by stating that " i n general it can be said that
Swedish settlers understood the art of maintaining neighborly peace
with the red hunters."33
SCHOOL BOOKS A N D LIBRARY BOOKS FOR CHILDREN
A very limited survey of one local library of generally high qual­ity,
Jönköpings Stadsbibliotek, revealed that a search on the term
i n d i a n e r yielded considerably more than 200 hits, while, as a com­parison,
the term samer (Saami) only returned 158 hits. Of the titles
on Indians, the largest category was books deemed suitable for adult
readers, but the category for children was almost the same size. The
majority of titles dealing with Indians were catalogued under the
heading K (history), followed by M (anthropology), while the Saami
titles were almost exclusively under the headings of M or N (geogra­phy).
This may be compared to a survey of literature available at
two schools (primary and secondary levels) in Växjö, which revealed
that material on Indians far exceeded that on the Saami. The books
dealing with Indians were generally of an older date, while Saami
literature was produced in the 1990s and onward. Books on Indians
tended to generalize about Indian culture and focus on ethnographic
detail from the past. Of thirteen surveyed titles, not one was written
or co-written by a person of Indian origin; whereas Saami books,
159
though fewer, had Saami authors and focused more on present-day
situations and on conflicts inherent in living in two worlds. Another
survey of audiovisual media for schools found a significant number of
items concerning Indians. One student compared the content in
material regarding Indians and Saami and found that while there
were approximately the same number of films or programs on loan
relating to each people, the emphasis differed noticeably. The films
on Indians primarily focused on history; while the material on the
Saami emphasized the present situation.34
A study carried out in two high school classes (approximately 60
students) in Växjö in 2001 showed that 65 percent of the students
were interested or very interested in Indians and Indian culture.
(Another survey of students in the ages of 10-15 revealed that they
were considerably more interested in learning about Indians than
about Saami.) The students ranked movies as their prime source of
information on Indians, but a surprisingly high number, 50 percent,
also mentioned school education as an important influence. This
warranted a closer look at the information contained in educational
material.
A n overview of the school books used revealed Indians as his­toric
and passive background figures. The books on history in which
Indians were found generally offered simple answers to complex his­torical
situations. Indian peoples and their culture and society were
compared with the Western world and almost always found lacking.
Indian cultures were overwhelmingly cast in the past tense. The high
cultures of Mesoamerica and South America were discussed as "sur­prising,"
and barbaric aspects of rituals were emphasized. In contrast,
popular culture representations of Indians more often portray them
as noble, stress connections to nature and spirituality, and offer up
Indians as alternatives to what is presented as decadent modern
societies. The high school students were found to be rather critical of
descriptions of Indians as cruel and bloodthirsty and much more
willing to embrace without question portrayals sympathetic or ro­manticizing
towards Indians. Many students believed that a true im­age
of Indians appears in shows and movies such as Pocahontas,
Dances with W o l v e s , and Dr. Q u i n n , M e d i c i n e W o m a n . In spite of their
differences, however, both educational material and popular culture
162
9. Ibid., 24.
10. Aleksander Loit, "Sveriges kolonilotter," in Den dolda historien. 27 uppsatser
om vårt okända förflutna, ed. Ronny Ambjörnsson och David Gaunt (Malmö:
Författarförlaget, 1984), 380-81.
11. Terry G . Jordan and Matti Kaups, The American Backwoods Frontier: A n
Ethnic and Ecological Interpretation (Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins
University Press, 1989), 89, 90. See also Jay Miller, "Blending Worlds," in The
Native Americans: An lllustrated History, ed. David Hurst Thomas, Betty Ballantine,
and Ian Ballantine (Atlanta: Turner Publishing, Inc. 1993), 193: "Only the
short-lived Swedish colony managed to live peacefully with its Indian neigh­bors
The Finns shared with the Indians a mixed economy of hunting, fishing,
and farming. They knew how to live i n the forest and rely o n neighbors. A n d
when natives and Swedes met, they shared their knowledge and experience with
each other. So natives learned from the Swedes how to build log cabins and
make splint baskets; and in return they taught the Swedes how to grow corn and
net fish."
12. Nils Erik Baehrendtz, "Nybyggarnas indianska grannar," in Ruhnbro, Det
Nya Sverige, 116; for similar statements in other commemorative materials from
1988, see The New Sweden Project and "Sverige-Amerika under 350 år," special
section, Jönköpings-Posten, 22 March 1988.
13. See: http://www.colonialswedes.org.Headlines.CPVl.html, 28 July 2003.
14. U l f Beijbom, "Svenskar och indianer. Efterskrift," in Lansens folk, Henrik
Larsson, (Växjö: Emigrantinstitutets vänner, 1996), 162.
15. A n event when Dakota Indians under the war chief Little Crow re­belled
against the appalling conditions on the reservation to which they had
been referred. In particular, they were aggravated by a lack of provisions that
they had been promised in a treaty. The war was short but very intensive, with a
large number of settlers—among them several Swedes and Norwegians—being
killed, and it ended only when troops were brought in. Thirty-two Indians were
sentenced to death by hanging.
16. Joy Lintelman and Betty Bergland, "Scandinavian Immigrants and In­digenous
Peoples: Ethnicity, Gender, and Colonial Encounters in Midwestern
Regions of the United States, 1830-1930" (unpublished conference paper, Inter­national
Federation for Research in Women's History Conference, Oslo, 2000).
On Swedes and the Minnesota conflict, see also Larry Lundblad, "The Impact of
Minnesota's Dakota Conflict of 1863 on the Swedish Settlers," The Swedish-
American Historical Quarterly 51, no. 3 (July 2000): 209-21.
17. Johanna Hedenquist, " En klarsynt man? Möten mellan en svensk emi­grant
och nordamerikanska indianer under 1800-talets sista decennier" (senior
thesis in history, D level, Växjö University, 1998).
18. Julia Köpsén, "Fredrika Bremers syn på indianerna" (senior thesis in
163
history, C level, Uppsala University, 1996).
19. Stefan Eldevall, "'Naturbarn begåfvade med många goda och många
dåliga egenskaper': Synen på den nordamerikanska urbefolkningen i svenska
reseskildringar och memoarer från 1853-1891" (senior thesis in history, C level,
Lund University, 2003).
20. C o l i n G . Calloway, Gerd Gemunden, and Susanne Zantop, eds., Ger­mans
and Indians: Fantasies, Encounters, Projections (Lincoln: University of Ne­braska
Press, 2002); Philip J. Deloria, Playing Indian (New Haven: Yale Univer­sity
Press, 1998), 7.
21. C o l i n F. Taylor, "The Indian Hobbyist Movement in Europe," in Hand­book
of N o r t h American Indians, vol. 4: History of Indian-White Relations (Wash­ington:
Smithsonian Institution 1988), 562.
22. Ibid., 567.
23. Holmberg, 43-44.
24. Shari M . Huhndorf, Going Native: Indians in the American Cultural Imagi­nation
(Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2001), 6-18.
25. Holmberg, 50-52.
26. See: http://members.tripod.eom/nafets77/fack/faos.htm#LENI, 2 Novem­ber
2003; http://www.indianbyn.nu, 23 July 2003; http://www
.freespiritsofsweden.com, 23 July 2003; http://www.svif.org/sve/sidan.html, 23
July 2003; http://www.geocities.com/outsidepix2000/indianl.html, 23 July 2003;
http://home.swipnet.se/indianmuseum/shunka.htm, 23 July 2003
27. Holmberg, 58.
28. Holmberg's focus on change over time allows h im to identify a progres­sion
with New Age interests displacing an earlier historical romanticism during
the 1990s. I only add that, while they may have developed into organized
interests at various times, it is now possible to find among the Swedish organiza­tion
dedicated to Indians' several different kinds of interests.
29. Christian F. Feest, "The Indian in Non-English Literature," in Handbook
of N o r t h American Indians, vol. 4, 586.
30. Yvonne Svenström, ed., Amerika är vårt (Stockholm: Lindqvists förlag,
1997); Svenström, Attack i gryningen (Stockholm: Plus förlag, 1978); Lennart
Lindberg, ed., Berömda indianer och spejare i Nordamerikas historia (Stockholm:
Nybloms förlag, 1983); Lennart Lindberg and Lars Wennersten, eds., Indiansk
höst (Stockholm: Nybloms förlag, 1982); Erik "Uncas" Englund and A l b i n Widén,
eds., Kungsörn och Kondor: Indianklubbens årsbok 1971 (Stockholm: Norstedts
förlag 1971); Lennart Lindberg, ed., Nya Indianboken: Biografisk handbok
(Stockholm: Valentin förlag, 1995); Erik "Uncas" Englund and A l b i n Widén,
ed., Spår mot väster (Stockholm: Lindqvists förlag, 1965); A l b i n Widén, ed.,
Striden vid Pierre's Hole: En samling av Indianklubbens bästa berättelser
(Stockholm:Lindqvists förlag, 1975); Erik "Uncas" Englund, ed., Stridsyxa och
164
fredspipa: Indianklubbens årsbok 1968 (Stockholm: Norstedts förlag, 1968); Så
länge gräset växer . . . (Stockholm: Nybloms förlag, 1984).
31. This observation seems to hold true also for other books published for
a popular audience. There is an emphasis on Plains tribes during the nineteenth
century, and on male pursuits in, for instance, Henrik Larsson's books.
32. Englund, ed., Stridsyxa och fredspipa, 5.
33. Lindberg and Wennersten, Indiansk höst, 80; Widén, Striden, 144. Holmberg
(48) notes an emphasis on immigration; and, although violence and conflicts
were often the main focus, a general trait in the publications of the 1960s was a
search for reconciliation and mutual understanding between Indians and Swed­ish
settlers.
34. Notes from class (HIB140:4 "Saamis and Indians Meet European Colo­nizers"),
Växjö University, fall 2001 and 2002.
35. Linda Steneros and Ulrika Sigfridsson, "Bilden av Indianens h i s t o r i a -
en studie av läromedel och populärkultur" (senior thesis in history, B level,
Växjö University 2001); Sofia Kruse, "Indianer i läroböckerna i historia för
gymnasiet kurs A " (senior thesis in history, C level, Växjö University, 2001);
Ann-Charlotte Gårdhed, "Samernas förekomst i undervisning i grundskolan"
(senior thesis in history, B level, Växjö University, 2002).